


fingers traced in circles round our history

by void_fish



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Magic, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-18
Updated: 2018-03-18
Packaged: 2019-04-04 10:25:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14018220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/void_fish/pseuds/void_fish
Summary: Seth’s magic manifests later than most.





	fingers traced in circles round our history

**Author's Note:**

  * For [shihadchick](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shihadchick/gifts).



> i've been dying to write seth/zach, thanks claire for giving me the excuse to do so!

Seth’s magic manifests later than most.

He’s wearing his Nashville gold jersey and his mom is hugging him and then-- he’s not wearing gold, and his mom isn’t hugging him. He’s in a locker room, which is familiar, because he’s spent most of his life in locker rooms, and it’s _hockey_ , which is familiar, he can see the names up on the whiteboard, can feel the skates on his feet.

When he looks down, he’s wearing dark blue.

He takes a breath. Blinks.

Next to him, someone elbows him, and he jumps.

‘You okay?’ the guy says. Seth glances over and-- Jack Johnson? Okay-- is looking at him, concerned.

‘Fine,’ he says, relieved when his voice doesn’t come out shaky.

‘First game jitters, huh?’ Johnson says. ‘I remember those. You’ll be great.’

‘--Thanks,’ Seth says. At least he apparently has an excuse for being a little spacey, so he looks around at his surroundings.

The Blue Jackets logo is on the floor in front of him, and on his jersey. Okay. It’s his first game, apparently, which-- he doesn’t even get to _play_ with Nashville before they trade him? That sucks.

The clock on the wall is counting down. The coach-- Seth doesn’t even really process that he’s talking, let alone who it is-- says something, and everyone bangs a skate on the floor and makes a noise. Seth jumps, and when Johnson gets up, he climbs to his feet as well.

He still uses the same stick, which is comforting. Still tapes it the same way, so it fits into his grip like he’s used to.

It’s just hockey. Whether this is a hallucination, or he’s gone insane, or he’s fucking time _travelled_ , whatever, he knows how to play hockey.

His skate hits the ice, and his mom is back, crying into his shoulder and pretending she isn’t. The cameras flash.

Seth feels like he can’t breathe. He maybe clings to his mom a little tighter than he needs to, because she looks up at him with concern.

‘I’m okay,’ he says. ‘Just-- everything is a lot, right now.’

She sobs a little again and pulls him down to kiss his forehead.

‘I’m so proud of you,’ she says, and hugs him again.

-

Later, they’re in the hotel room together, and he’s-- mostly gotten himself together. His jersey is hanging on the closet door, and his mom sniffles every time she looks at it, but it’s fine.

‘Mom,’ he says, carefully. ‘You know when I was little, and I went to that doctor in Frisco? And he told me that I had really low levels for-- magic?’

She nods, frowning.

‘I think he might have been wrong,’ he says.

-

He goes to a different doctor, one in Nashville, and they’re baffled when he tells them what happened.

They reassure him that he isn’t going insane, which is nice, and that it _is_ a power manifestation, but they take scans and blood tests and all kinds of things and nothing shows on anything that says he should be magic.

Apparently he has the most average white cell count they’ve ever seen. He guesses that’s something at least.

‘But how?’ he asks. ‘If it _is_ magic, then why doesn’t anything show on the scans?’

‘In rare cases, it doesn’t,’ is all the doctor can tell him, which doesn’t seem like much of an explanation.

‘Can I take something to stop it happening?’

‘If you mean a pill, then unfortunately not,’ the doctor says. ‘It’s not technically classed as a power that can interfere with the outcome of a game, so we can’t give you anything. However, lots of players find that meditation is very helpful, we can refer you to a therapist?’

He takes their pamphlets and a referral to a therapist, and goes back to the hotel room he’s sharing with his mom, disappointed.

-

He spends the next two weeks on edge, waiting for it to happen again. He starts to imagine the tingling in his fingers and toes that preceded his last-- episode, and he’s almost afraid to, well, do anything that might make him _time travel_ again.

In the end, he’s asleep when it happens. He goes to sleep in his unfamiliar hotel room in downtown Nashville, and wakes up in a vast, king sized bed overlooking a city that definitely _isn’t_ Nashville, and--

There’s someone else in the bed with him.

He has no idea who it is-- a dark-haired white guy, naked from the waist up, sheets pooled at his hips as he lies on his stomach, head turned away. He’s snoring gently as the early morning light hits his skin.

Seth takes a deep breath, and then another. When he looks around, there’s a phone on his nightstand, and he makes a grab for it. The passcode isn’t his birthday, or his draft year, or his mom’s birthday, but when he gives up and goes back to the lock screen, it’s him, flushed and glossy eyed, clearly most of his way to wasted, cheek to cheek with who he assumes is the guy in bed next to him. He’s-- cute, Seth notices, soft brown eyes and a nice smile. He has a scar on his cheekbone, and Seth thumbs at it gently.

Seth looks older in the photo, has actual facial hair, and his jaw isn’t quite so soft. The date says January 12th, 2018. 

Five years away. He’s twenty-four, and apparently he has a boyfriend, and _apparently_ they’re open enough that they’re Seth’s lock screen, where anyone can see.

He shifts in the sheets, slides halfway out of bed, and then a hand grabs at his wrist. The guy hasn’t even turned over, but he’s holding onto Seth with a vice-grip.

‘Go back to sleep,’ he mumbles. ‘Too early for being awake.’

Seth pauses. The hand is soft and warm and strong. He gives up, shuffles back into bed, and the guy wriggles up next to him, pulling Seth’s arm over his waist. He hums, content, and after a moment, the snoring starts up again. He smells good, Seth realises, like the kind of cologne his dad used to wear on date nights with his mom.

He lies there, wrapped around a stranger, and slowly, slowly, drifts off back to sleep.

-

He wakes up alone in his uncomfortable bed and can still smell the traces of cologne.

-

It takes Seth a while to decide whether whether he goes to real times or not.

He makes his debut with the Preds, so his weird Jack Johnson conversation can’t happen.

And then he’s in practice, just noodling around with a puck, practicing his stick handling, and _then_ he’s at Bridgestone, and the puck is about to land right on his tape, and he shoots out of muscle memory more than anything and-- it goes in.

Holy _fuck_.

When he watches it back, on the big screen, he looks shellshocked more than anything else. He sits on the bench next to _Shea fucking Weber_ and tries to calm the fuck down. He stays there for the rest of the game, takes a bunch more shifts and doesn’t fuck up too egregiously.

He’s about to hit the locker room, Webs giving him a facewash, when he blinks, and he’s back at practice, and Filip has swiped his puck.

‘Hey, Roman,’ he says, getting changed after. ‘We’re playing the Isles tomorrow, right?’

Josi blinks at him, and then nods, turns back to Webs to continue his conversation.

-

Seth knows the puck is going in before it even reaches him.

He’s standing in exactly the same spot, and Legwand sends the puck through the middle, he cradles it, readjusts, and shoots, and it fucking _goes_ in.

He’s just as fucking shellshocked, barely remembers to celly like he didn’t do _exactly the same thing yesterday morning_.

The guys barrel into him and he tries to remember how to breathe.

-

He’s sitting in the locker room after-- half-in, half-out of his gear, staring at his hands.

That one was real. Jack Johnson couldn’t have been.

What does that mean for the strange city, and the apparent boyfriend?

For Seth, being gay has mostly been a hypothetical. He’s never been interested in girls, has caught himself sneaking a look at teammates even though he _knows_ that’s not buddies. He just always figured he could choose hockey or a boyfriend. And he knows he’s really good at hockey, so. It was kind of a non-choice, really.

He catches himself looking at guys on the street, wondering when he’ll meet the guy in his bed.

He wonders if he plays hockey too. The scar on his cheek looks like a puck scar, god knows Seth’s seen enough of them, and he was definitely in good shape, strong and lean. Seth starts keeping an eye on Nashville’s prospects; the apartment wasn’t in Nashville, he’s pretty sure, but maybe they get traded together? He watches other teams when he plays against them, but he doesn’t find him.

-

Seth is jerking off, thinking idly about Henry Cavill in the new Superman, and then he twists his wrist just right, and-- that’s not his hand.

He opens his eyes, and he sees a mass of dark hair sinking down onto him. Feels a warm, wet mouth around his dick. _Fuck_.

It’s the guy from before, he’s pretty sure, his hypothetical future boyfriend, and apparently he doesn’t have a gag reflex, because Seth feels his dick bump the back of his throat.

Seth has to look away, stare up at the ceiling, out of the window (thanking god they live high enough up that no one can see them from neighbouring apartment blocks), anywhere but down at this guy. 

There’s a wet sound, and cool air on his dick. He risks a look down. The guy’s pupils are blown, his lips shiny and red and pouty. He looks like a fucking wet dream. 'Talk to me?' he asks, voice raspy. 'You’re too damn quiet sometimes, babe.'

Fuck. What does Seth even say? The guy slides back down, keeping eye contact, and something in Seth’s belly flipflops. 'Fuck, you feel good,' he starts, and the guy’s throat vibrates as he hums, pleased. 'Yeah, that, fuck, do that some more.'

He babbles away until the guy’s bobbing up and down, stroking him with the hand that’s not pressed on Seth’s hip to keep him still, and he can feel his balls tightening, can feel his orgasm rippling, and he gets as far as 'I’m gonna--' before he comes down this guys throat. 

Seth’s never had sex with a guy before, but he knows that coming in someone’s mouth without warning them is rude, so as soon as he can breathe again, he looks down at where the guy has pillowed his cheek on Seth’s thigh, and apologises.

The guy wrinkles his nose, and laughs. 'Since when do you feel bad about coming in my mouth?'

Seth stops, mouth open. 'Uh,' he says, and the guy frowns.

He opens his mouth to say something, and Seth is back in Nashville, back in his own bed, back to just having his hand on his now sticky, softening dick.

He can feel his heart racing. He lies there, hand in his underwear, and tries to calm down. 

-

Seth gives up on trying to find his future boyfriend in amongst the dozens of faces he plays with and against. He figure he’ll turn up when he turns up. 

In the meantime, though, Nashville isn’t exactly a hot-bed of gay activity from what he’s seen, but he tries his best. He doesn’t want to be the same blushing virgin he was during his first ever blowjob the other night, so: practice.

His first attempt is kind of a mess, he makes out with a guy in a dark corner of a bar in Nashville, and it’s fun, but when they go into the light, the guy does a double take. ‘You’re--’

Seth flees.

After that he sticks to bars on road trips, waiting for Calle to pass out, open mouthed and snoring, before he sneaks out.

He gives his first blowjob in Anaheim to a handsome, older guy who warns him before coming, and kisses him gently before smacking his ass and sending him home.

‘You don’t want to take me home?’ Seth asks.

‘You’re cute,’ he says. ‘But you’re definitely too young for me.’

‘Old enough to blow you,’ Seth says, trying not to sound sullen.

‘Go home, baby. You’re too innocent to be fucking strangers in bars.’

Seth leans in for another kiss, trying to hook his fingers in the guy’s belt loops, but he wriggles free, pats him on the cheek. ‘Call me when you’re old enough to drink,’ he says, gives him one last, chaste kiss before putting him in an Uber.

Seth doesn’t even get his number.

-

Lots of guys on the Preds have magic, Seth knows.

Some of it is kind of lame, like how Del Zotto can talk to animals, which sounds cool until you realise most animals have no interest in talking to people.

Webs’ is kind of cool, he can-- influence emotions, Seth guesses. He calms guys down, riles them up, without even saying anything, just a brush of bare skin to bare skin. He’s not supposed to do it during games, but he does. Hard to prove, Seth knows from experience.

Seth’s file has a marker on it that say he’s magic, league regulation, and people talk, so the team knows he can do _something_. He doesn’t want to tell them his superpower is time travelling to his future boyfriend, so. He just ducks his head whenever the topic comes up. He’s just a kid, he can get away with being shy. For now.

-

Seth’s been sneaking out for most of the season before he gets caught. They’re in Tampa, and he’s coming back from his hookup’s apartment, a guy called Richard, a grad student who didn’t even know that Florida had ice hockey, and who let Seth fuck him, and didn’t comment on how clumsy it felt. It was nice. He got Richard’s number, even though he’s pretty sure he’s never going to call him. He won’t be in Tampa for a whole season now.

The hotel lobby is empty except for Webs, sitting in an armchair with a battered looking old Kindle and the reading glasses he pretends he doesn’t need. It’s uncannily like if Seth’s father was waiting up to know why he missed curfew. Seth wonders if he could sneak past him; he seems pretty engrossed in his book.

‘Fun night?’ he asks, and Seth flinches.

‘How’d you know I was gone?’ he asks.

‘I stopped by your room and Calle told me you were there when he went to sleep and gone when I woke him up.’

Seth shuffles from foot to foot. He has to bury the urge to call Webs ‘Sir’.

‘I was-- with a friend,’ he says, stilted. ‘I lost track of time.’

Webs hums. He looks like he doesn’t believe a word Seth is saying.

‘Are you gonna tell coach?’ Seth asks.

Webs looks over his glasses at him. ‘Not this time,’ he says. ‘You’re not being stupid, are you?’

Seth feels like Webs isn’t buying his “hanging out with a friend” story at all, but he shakes his head, tries to look innocent, hopes the hickey Richard gave him in the hollow of his throat is hidden by shadow.

Webs looks at him for long enough to make Seth uncomfortable, and then goes back to his book. Seth stands there for a beat, and flees.

-

Seth has the draft on just for background noise, mostly. He’s meant to be helping his mom with dinner, but she keeps hip bumping him out of the way to show him how something is done, and eventually she just tells him to sit at the island.

He loves watching his mom cook, it’s one of his first memories. She’s got her back to him now, stirring the sauce, and his attention drifts to the TV.

‘With the 8th overall pick, the Columbus Blue Jackets are happy to select, from the University of Michigan, Zach Werenski.’

It’s his guy. His boyfriend.

He looks nervous, and his suit is terrible, but he’s smiling a small, barely there smile as he pulls the jersey over his head.

Seth can hear his mom saying something to him, but he can’t look away from the TV.

Zach. It’s been two years, and he finally has a name.

He wonders when he’ll get to meet him.

-

**Ryan Johansen and Seth Jones swapped in mega trade with Predators and Jackets**

_ January 6, 2016 _

_ The Columbus Blue Jackets have acquired defenseman Seth Jones from the Nashville Predators in exchange for Ryan Johansen in a blockbuster trade. _

 


End file.
